The Foul Fair
by Speechless
Summary: This is my guess as to what might happen in the ninth ASOUE book.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: Hi! I already have written 7 chapters of this story and posted them on www.lemonysnicket.net –great site. Sorry this first chapter is so short—when I wrote it I wasn't sure how long I was going to make the story so I decided to do it very, very, short. Mweehehehehe! Hope you like it!  
  
Disclaimer: sigh I still don't own anything. Not even a DVD player. This sucks!  
  
Chapter 1  
  
The Baudelaire orphans had been crouching in the trunk of Count Olaf's car for hours, listening to his associates argue about articles in that day's Daily Punctilio and having cigarette butts thrown at them carelessly from the seat in front of them. Scarcely breathing for fear of Count Olaf's associates hearing them, they began to worry. When would the car stop, and where? How would they escape? Where would they live? These questions buzzed inside their brains and made their hearts beat too fast.  
  
"I wonder if the brats got out of the hospital in time," said a scratchy, whispery voice, which the orphans recognized to be Count Olaf's. "If they didn't, we can't get their fortune."  
  
"They probably did, considering it's them. I don't really care too much anyway, at least then they couldn't run around trying to find information so that they can accuse us of crimes," said a snooty-sounding, high-pitched voice, which most likely belonged to Esme Squalor.  
  
Back in the trunk, the orphans smiled.  
  
"This is the first time in a long while that they haven't known exactly where we are," Violet whispered.  
  
"And we're actually a lot closer to them than we have been in the past," added Klaus.  
  
"Kitsalo!" Sunny breathed. She probably meant something along the lines of "Unfortunately."  
  
"Well, we still have to figure out a way to get out of this trunk. We are in quite a bad situation here. Any ideas?" Violet asked. She hoped her siblings had some, because she certainly didn't.  
  
"Er..." Klaus started hesitantly. "I don't think I've read any books about how to escape from the bullet-hole-peppered trunks of evil-people's cars before."  
  
"Choo," Sunny said, sighing softly and resting her tiny head on Violet's knee. By "choo" she meant "And I don't think I can bite our way out of this trunk. My four sharp teeth never were much against metal, anyway."  
  
"Can you invent something to get us out of here, Violet?" Klaus whispered hopefully. In the front of the car, the bald man with the long nose and the hook-handed man had now changed the subject of conversation from The Daily Punctilio to the best flavors of ice cream.  
  
"What do I have to work with? Some empty bottles of wine? Medical coats? A crystal ball? Metal bat--" Violet stopped. She had just pointed to a pair of batons, which are sticks that people in parades spin around and do tricks with. Metal batons, fortunately, can also be used to pry open the rusty, cracked doors of people's cars. This is exactly what Violet then explained to her younger siblings. That was how they would get out of the trunk...if only the car hadn't stopped right then. 


	2. Chapter 2 (how original!)

Chapter 2  
  
"Oh no!!" Klaus tried with all his might to pry open the door before theater troupe was out of the car and crowded around the trunk, waiting to unpack their junk and find a new hideout. Wherever they had parked, it must have been safe for six criminals to walk casually around to the trunk of their car, chatting quite loudly.  
  
Sunny cringed and hid her face in Klaus's jacket as the acting troupe opened the trunk door. Count Olaf gasped sarcastically.  
  
"Well, well well. I see we have some stowaways here who happen to have an exceptionally large fortune that they will inherit in a little over three years," Count Olaf snarled as he grabbed Sunny, who was struggling to break free. "Get out now!" he ordered Violet and Klaus.  
  
All three orphans looked around. They had expected to find themselves in some dimly-lit alley or near a crummy old bar or even back at Olaf's house. But as they looked around, they were surprised to see merry-go-rounds and ferris wheels. Violet wondered if it was a joke.  
  
The six villains led them into a fairly small yellow-and-white striped tent, where Esme explained to them what their fates would be.  
  
"OK, brats, here's the deal. Actually, it's not really a deal, because you three don't get anything, but what do I care? Anyway, me and Olaf have decided who we want to keep and who we can dispose of. You'd think we'd pick the baby, because she is travel-size, but she won't always be so small, and besides, who wants to wait eighteen years for the fortune? Since you "murderers" are so dumb, then you'd assume I'd want to keep the oldest smart-aleck if i didn't want to wait for the cash. But you're wrong, because she's extremely inconveniently-sized and I can't deal with having to push a large brat around. So, we'll kill the oldest and youngest, but we'll keep the bookworm because he's not as big and not as young as the other two," explained Esme.  
  
The Baudelaires stared, unable to speak. How would they get out of this mess? They had no one to help them now. Their only friends were flying forever in a self-sustaining mobile home, or so they thought.  
  
"Of course, we'll kill the middle brat, too, once we have the money, don't worry. You will all be back with your darling parents before you know it!" Esme cackled.  
  
"Fastinny!" Sunny shrieked. Her siblings knew at once that she meant "Not if we can help it" and the three convicted murderers raced out of the tent as fast as their legs could carry them.  
  
"Hurry! Into that blue-and-white tent over there!" Violet said to Klaus and Sunny. Inside, a dark-haired woman wearing a bandana, a frilly red dress, and extremely large hoop earrings was staring down at her desk with a sad look on her face.  
  
"Er...excuse me, ma'am? C-could we, um, hide in here? We're in something of an emergency situation right now," Klaus explained hastily.  
  
"Why, sure, darlin'!" the lady smiled and pointed at a flap in the wall of the tent behind her desk. "Y'all can hide in this here room. 'Swhere I keep all my fortune tellin' stuff."  
  
"Thank you so much! We'll explain later, and we'll pay you back, we promise," Violet said gratefully, and ushered Sunny and Klaus through the flap in the wall of the tent. It was dark and damp and smelled like fish that had been dead for a day or two and had not been refrigerated, but the orphans didn't mind. They dived into a pile of more frilly dresses and capes and decks of tarot cards and other fortune teller-like things, so they would not be seen if Count Olaf or one of his associates looked in the back room.  
  
Sure enough, in a couple of minutes, they heard the voice of the hook- handed man.  
  
"Have you seen three bratty orphans? Anywhere??" he asked in a desperate voice.  
  
"Naw, sir, there ain't no kids in these here parts, I'll tell you's that. You'd best be on yer way, I'll tell you's if I see some suspicious-looking children 'round here, alrighty?" they heard the lady lie.  
  
"The boss will KILL me!" the hook-handed man exclaimed as he ran out of the tent.  
  
"It's safe for y'all to come out now; as I reckon that's who you's were runnin' from." The Baudelaires stepped hesitantly into the main part of the tent. "Aw, by the way, m'name's Madam Lulu. See, I went to France fer a year 'r two, 'n I saw this performin' cat, and 'er name was Lulu. I thought she was swell and I wanted people to think o' me that way, so I named meself after 'er. Only problem is I don't sound half as elegant as my name, so most people think I'm a phony psychic." She shuffled some cards. "Say, what're your names?"  
  
Violet paused. If Madam Lulu read the Daily Punctilio, she'd call the police when Violet told her their names. The orphans had to be very careful about revealing their names to strangers, just in case.  
  
"Umm...my name is...Isadora Quagmire. This is my brother, Duncan, and my sister, ah, Quiglina," Violet said, using the first names that popped into her head.  
  
"OK, Isadora. Well, I have somethin' of a favor to ask of you three, if you do want to pay me back for hidin' y'all, like you said. You see, I'm in danger of losin' my job 'cause I accidentally let Chabo, my little V.F.D, loose, er, at acrobat's practice and he...hurt three of 'em real bad. They had to go off t' the hospital, and we can't perform without 'em. I promised the boss I'd find him three new acrobats for the show and....I can't bear to be kicked out of another travelin' carnival!!" and with that Madam Lulu put her head on her desk and cried.  
  
"Noque, noque," Sunny said comfortingly, which, as you may remember, means "There, there."  
  
"We'll be the acrobats, Madam Lulu...don't worry. But what, exactly, did you mean when you said Chabo was a V.F.D.?" Klaus said excitedly. The Baudelaires waited expectantly for her answer.  
  
"Very Freakish Dog, of course!" 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
Violet stared. Could this possibly be the VFD that Duncan and Isadora had tried to warn them about? But Jacques Snicket had said that he worked for VFD, and how can you work for a dog? And why would that require you to tattoo your ankle? All three Baudelaires felt a sinking feeling that, yet again, they had found the wrong VFD.  
  
"Why are y'all lookin' so disappointed all of a sudden?" Madam Lulu asked, wiping her eyes. "All I said was that my lil' Chabo was a Very Freakish Dog, and he is! The poor feller was born three times the size of a normal dog, with amazing speed and very sharp teeth. He's my wolf baby!" she went on and on about his greenish-reddish-bluish-brownish-purplish-yellow eyes and keen sense of smell, his ability to leap ten feet in the air, how he can tell when someone is lying and when someone is a bad person or not. Soon her tears were dried and she was looking dreamily into the distance.  
  
"Oh, nothing, Madam Lulu, it's just that…well, we were hoping VFD had something to do with a volunteer organization of some kind…it's a long story, and a sad one," Klaus said, looking down at the ground. If only Madam Lulu could help them in some way!  
  
"Go on, then. I got plenty o' time. Apparently, nobody likes getting their fortunes told no more, 'cause I ain't seen one fairgoer in here since…well anyway, fire away."  
  
"Noffergsy!" Sunny said, and her siblings translated for Lulu: "The story starts with a terrible fire that killed our parents and destroyed our house. We got stuck with a weirdo called Count Olaf, who"  
  
"Don't you mean that poor guy those awful children murdered? He can't have been a weirdo! Anyone who is accused of murder is the villain, and the person who accuses them is ALWAYS innocent! I just can't believe those terrible young 'uns, foolin' around with scary stuff like murder…" the orphans exchanged nervous glances. "Well, keep goin', what happened next?" Madam Lulu now had a dark scowl on her face from thinking about the Baudelaire murderers.  
  
So the Baudelaires went on explaining their extremely unlucky pasts, leaving out the parts about Count Olaf. When they did so, it made the story quite a bit shorter, considering Count Olaf constantly affected how they lived. They told about Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, about Sir and Vice Principal Nero, about Jerome Squalor (leaving out Esme) and Hector the Handyman of VFD, and then about Hal and their recent stay at the now destroyed Heimlich Hospital. When they were finished, Lulu said,  
  
"Now, you three seem like nice kids, charming, resourceful, the whole lot, and you've had a bit of a difficult childhood so far, so y'all are welcome to stay with me. I'll make sure that guy with the hooks on 'is arms won't find ya. 'Member, you got yourselves a 100% psychic in front of ya. I know everythin', so no one'll dare hurt me or you. No one has tried before, anyways,"  
  
At this point in the story, I, Selia Jour, must tell you about one of my wishes. Not just any wish, of course, for I have many, but one that has to do with Madam Lulu, the psychic who is not really 100% psychic but actually only 15%. I wish that after saying what she had just said, she had knocked on wood. By refraining to do so, she jinxed herself, but she also jinxed the Baudelaires, by saying she would not let the hook-handed man find them and that no one would hurt them. But this is the truth. The sad, horrible truth.  
  
The Baudelaires spent that night in Madam Lulu's tent-closet, using sparkly capes as blankets and pillows, and they would spend many nights after that there, too.  
  
The next morning, the Baudelaires were enjoying themselves with Madam Lulu. She was teaching them how to read palms.  
  
"Now, you see this here itty-bitty line? That one's the luck-line. Hmm…that's strange…the luck-line's usually much, much longer than it is on you three." The orphans looked at each other and exchanged small smiles. They knew that they were probably the three unluckiest people to walk on the face of the earth.  
  
"Anyway, Duncan, Isadora, Quiglina… acrobat's practice resumes today. I've let them know that you have no prior trainin', and they're OK with that. I just thought y'might like to know…oh, and d'ya wanna meet my widdle puppy? His name's Chabo and he's a DOLL. Oh! Here's the sweetie right now!" Madam Lulu was pointing at a creature that was taller than she was, with thick brown fur, razor-sharp, four-inch-long teeth dripping with saliva, and strange eyes that seemed to be a mixture of many different colors. It lowered its enormous, smelly head so that it was level with Violet's, and then he stuck out his great big slobbery tongue and licked her on the face.  
  
"Well I'll be darned! He likes ya! Awww…ain't he the cutest thang you ever saw?" Madam Lulu said as Violet looked around for something she could wash her face with. Lulu pointed to a bathroom outside the tent, and Violet scurried off to get rid of the coat of slimy stuff that covered her face, which now reeked of dog breath. Klaus and Sunny backed away toward the wall, hoping that Chabo wouldn't "like them" as well. The enormous dog lowered itself to the ground. The younger Baudelaires looked at Madam Lulu, uncertain of what he was doing.  
  
"Don' be scared, now, Quiglina and Duncan, he only wants to take y'all to acrobat's practice! Right on time, too. Chabo, honey, let's wait for Isadora to come back before y' leave, OK?" But Chabo didn't want to wait. He let out an earth-shaking growl and bared his teeth.  
  
"All right, all right, you can have them ride you NOW," Lulu said, beaming. "Climb on, young 'uns!" and Klaus and Sunny did so, reluctantly. Chabo started running at full speed, and in the process, knocked Violet over as she reentered the tent. Though she was startled, she giggled softly as she watched Sunny hold on to Klaus and Klaus hold on to Chabo for dear life; Chabo tearing through the tiny crowds of people hurrying to and from tents.  
  
"Y' can just walk with me to practice, I'll show y'all the way to the big tent," Madam Lulu said sympathetically, and off they went to their first acrobat's practice.  
  
  
  
"Now, you three. New acrobats, huh? Ever performed before, little one? Boy, can you even touch your toes? Get that piece of ripped cloth out of your hair! I can see all of you aren't in the greatest physical condition. Well, I'LL fix you up, that's for sure," said an extremely short man with a nose that was bent almost completely sideways. He had very short hair and a shadow of a goatee, and squinty eyes that looked like little black pebbles stuck on his face. This man's name was Alfred Gnawschtein. "My name is Alfred Gnawschtein, that's MISTER Gnawschtein to you, twerps."  
  
Klaus bit his lip. This wasn't going to be fun at all, not with someone as nasty sounding as Mr. Gnawschtein to teach you, and let me tell you, he WAS nasty.  
  
"Anyway, this is THE SECOND-GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, so we can't have anyone messing us up. You guys had better be good." Mr. Gnawschtein went on like this for a long while, telling them what would happen if they messed up during a performance. Finally, he got around to talking about THE SECOND- GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH and where they would travel with it. He showed them a great big long list of towns.  
  
"Tedia…Lake Lachrymose…Paltryville…we know those places. They were where Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine lived, and where the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was. Hey! There's OUR hometown. Maybe we'll see Jerome again," Klaus said hopefully. Jerome was one of their few guardians who had actually cared for them and lived to tell the tale.  
  
"Mechonis!" Sunny shrieked, meaning "I notice VFD is not on the list. This carnival has things like Ferris wheels, which are mechanical devices and therefore aren't allowed."  
  
"Look at the city listed right after this one: Librariton. Doesn't that sound like it would be a place where we could find out what VFD actually stands for and what it has to do with Count Olaf, using libraries?" Violet said thoughtfully.  
  
"It does. We could stay with this "Second-Greatest Show on Earth" thing long enough to travel there, and then quit," said Klaus.  
  
"Lulu!" Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of "But Madam Lulu would be left without three acrobats to take the places of the ones Chabo hurt!"  
  
"I think that the original acrobats would be healed by then. Let's hope the are," said Violet.  
  
"Enough chatter! I have only a couple of weeks to turn you into fine acrobats before we move to Librariton!" Mr. Gnawschtein snapped. He walked them into an enormous circus tent, with seats sky-high on every side. The Baudelaires' stomachs gave a quiver. None of them had stage fright, but it WOULD make them nervous to have to perform in front of all those people.  
  
Mr. Gnawschtein showed them the equipment they would be working with, the awful ways they would have to twist themselves up in knots and then bound right back and do flips in the air.  
  
It may seem unbelievable, as do most things in this story, but in two weeks Mr. Gnawschtein HAD trained them to be excellent acrobats. Being the smallest, Sunny was the lucky Baudelaire who got to be hurtled through the air by her big sister and caught with her big brother's feet, all of this happening at least fifty feet above the ground. Klaus and Violet could both do back handsprings onto trampolines, which bounced them up to trapezes high in the air. Though he taught them well, Mr. Gnawschtein was still incredibly annoying. If they made ONE mistake he would holler at the top of his lungs, "NO! YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!! From the beginning, now!"  
  
Soon it was time for the whole carnival to move to Librariton, where the Baudelaires would perform in their first real show.  
  
"Y'all shouldn't be nervous, you'll do fine. Why, I ain't never seen three acrobats who perform as good as you!" Madam Lulu said encouragingly. The orphans found this hard to believe, however, because they had only been practicing for two weeks.  
  
"Lulu, we've only been practicing for two weeks!" Klaus exclaimed as he paced back and forth in her tent's new location.  
  
"Madam Lulu, do you know if we'll get any free time while we're staying in Librariton? Time to, maybe, look at some libraries?" Violet asked hopefully.  
  
"I should think so, Isadora. It's not like the carnival's open all day and all night or somethin'!" Madam Lulu said, chuckling. "Why are you three so keen on goin' to the libraries anyway? It's all you ever talk about anymore. Haven't y'all ever been to one?"  
  
"Polytin!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "Of course! We've been to Legal Libraries and Reptile Libraries, Grammatical Libraries and Barely Libraries, School Libraries and Snooty Libraries, Secret Libraries and Records Libraries, and our own library that…got burned." Which Klaus was quick to translate.  
  
"Well goodness me, that's a lotta libraries y'all've been to! But I suppose you ain't never been to Librariton? That town's the biggest bunch of book- fanatics as you're ever gonna find."  
  
It comforted the Baudelaires to know that they might just be able to finally solve the mystery that controlled their miserable lives. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
The next morning, the circus was still being set up so all the clowns, mimes, ride operators, face-painters, animal trainers, acrobats, the ringmaster and the fortune teller were given some free time to explore Librariton.  
  
Madam Lulu agreed to come with the Baudelaires so that they wouldn't get lost. Besides, they liked Madam Lulu and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. In two weeks they had become great friends, even if it was a little awkward when one orphan called another by their real names, instead of by the Quagmires' names.  
  
"Which way is the library?" Klaus asked. He was so eager to try and find out things about Count Olaf's past that he couldn't stop fidgeting.  
  
"Well, which library'r y'all int'rested in lookin' at, Duncan?" Lulu asked. "There's so many to choose from. Why, there's the smallest library, the second smallest library, the second middle-sized library, the middle sized library, the pretty big library, the big library, the huge library, the gigantic library, the enormous library, or, there's the records library."  
  
"Minganesh!" Sunny shrieked. At this moment she meant something along the lines of "OOH! Let's try the Records Library! Then we can look at old newspapers and stuff!" and that they did.  
  
Madam Lulu walked them the thirteen blocks to the Records Library of Librariton. It was an old looking house-type building, made out of stone, with a high roof and black shutters.  
  
"Here y'all are. Not the most welcomin' building I ever saw, but it'll do."  
  
The Baudelaires did not hear this, though, for they were too busy running up the stone steps.  
  
"I just don't know what it is 'bout those three," Madam Lulu said, shaking her head. "that makes them so darn excited about goin' to that library. What are they lookin' for?" She decided that she would find out. THey always seemed to nervous whever she mentioned their past...and they had said something about living with Count Olaf for a while. Then a terrible thought struck her. What if the Baudelaire murderers, the ones who had murdered their old guardian, were after her beloved Quagmire children? She would have to do everything in her power to protect them--for an enormous price, of which she knew nothing at the time.  
  
***  
  
"We could check for a Baudelaire file again," Violet suggested.  
  
"Or maybe there's a Snicket file, or even a Count Olaf file," Klaus added.  
  
"Rettop!" Sunny shrieked.  
  
"That's true, Sunny. We should go check for a VFD file," agreed Violet, and off they went.  
  
"There's the V section," said Klaus, pointing to a far wall.  
  
"Good. I wonder if this library is set up the way the Heimlich Hospital library is, with the guide words on the outside of the cabinet...?" Violet started, but at once she knew she was wrong, because she looked at one of the labels on a near filing cabinet.  
  
"Ventriloquist...just ventriloquist, nothing else...how strange. Does that mean that this entire filing cabinet is full of things on ventriloquists?" Violet asked. Sunny opened the cabinet and looked through it.  
  
"Phonixe!" she shrieked, which meant "From what I can read, yes. It is very difficult for me to tell, though, because I am only a baby."  
  
"Oh no," moaned Klaus. "This will take forever!" They caught him eyeing the filing cabinet for "book."  
  
"Well, if one of our parents is alive, Klaus, it'll all be worth it, won't it?" Violet said determinedly, and Klaus was persuaded.  
  
"If there IS a VFD cabinet, it should be around here somewhere. After all, the letter F comes right after E," Klaus said.  
  
"Right...it should be...right...HERE!" exclaimed Violet excitedly. She was pointing to a dusty cabinet that looked as though it had not been opened for a long time. On a yellowing piece of paper held in place by silver frames were the printed letters: VFD.  
  
"Nofake!" Sunny whispered, meaning something like: "This cabinet probably holds the REAL meaning of VFD. The one the Quagmires told us about. Not that silly 'Very Freakish Dog' thing Madam Lulu was talking about."  
  
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's open it!" Klaus said. He pulled open the cabinet. It was very heavy, and groaned when it opened.  
  
To the Baudelaires' dismay, the filing cabinet was full of many folders, each with a different "VFD" on top. The orphans recognized one, Volunteers Fighting Disease, from the Heimlich Hospital. But there were so many they had never heard before...  
  
"Ventilated Four-Doors? Vain French Dukes? Vexatious Folk Dances? What is all this? I never knew there were so many VFDs," Violet said discouragedly.  
  
"Maybe Jacques worked at the factory that made Versatile Frilly Draperies!" Klaus joked, but he stopped with a stern look from Violet.  
  
"Categorium!" Sunny said, meaning something along the lines of, "Well, let's look for a VFD that sounds like it has something to do with our past, or Count Olaf."  
  
"Good idea, Sunny," Violet agreed, and they all started flipping through the file cabinet, murmuring to themselves about the possibility of this particular VFD being the one that mattered to them. From the Voracious for Fried Duck club to Voluminous Finnish Dictionaries they searched and searched, until they at last came to something they thought could be of use to them: Volunteer Fire Department. Klaus excitedly opened the folder.  
  
"Empty! Completely empty! Except for this--this list of OTHER file names..." he scanned the list, which looked like this:  
  
RELATED FILES  
  
-CRIMINALS, 10 MOST WANTED  
  
-FORTUNE TELLING  
  
-TATTOO  
  
-SNICKET FAMILY, THE HISTORY OF  
  
and, way down at the very bottom, scrawled in messy print instead of neatly typed, was one word. That word was "Baudelaire." 


	5. Chapter 5 (whew..these titles just keep ...

1 Chapter 5  
  
"Someone's been here!" Klaus exclaimed. "Someone in Librariton knows about VFD besides us!"  
  
"And they know who we are, too," murmured Violet. "or at least they've heard of us before, if we're at all related to VFD."  
  
"Onuklam!" Sunny whispered worriedly. At this particular moment, she meant something along the lines of "So what do we do now?" This was followed by an uncomfortable silence, in which all three Baudelaires looked at each other, waiting for an answer. But it took a while for one to come.  
  
"We check these other files, that's what!" Klaus said suddenly, and once he did, it seemed obvious.  
  
They all got up at once, Klaus still clutching the small typed list of related files, and they half-ran over to the filing cabinet for the first item on the list, which was in the section which had cabinets with subjects that started with the letter C. They were looking for the cabinet called: Criminals, 10 Most Wanted.  
  
When they had found the cabinet, and after Violet had wrenched it open (this cabinet also felt as if it had not been opened in an extremely long time) they found that, like the VFD cabinet, it was stuffed to the brim with information on the ten most wanted criminals.  
  
After several minutes of "hmm"ing and muttering to themselves, Sunny found a bit of paper that seemed to cover the topic nicely. It read as follows:  
  
1.1 THE TOP TEN MOST WANTED CRIMINALS LIST  
  
Count Omar  
  
Lauren Ursula Lichtenstien-Ullman  
  
Lemony Snicket  
  
Susie Baudelaire  
  
Veronica Baudelaire  
  
Klyde Baudelaire  
  
James O. Laf  
  
Ophelia deOlafio  
  
Bernard Olafson  
  
Olafiz E. Vill  
  
"It's a bit out of date… 'Count Omar' was recently reported to the public as dead…killed by Susie, Veronica, and Klyde Baudelaire," noticed Violet.  
  
"Jacquesnam!" Sunny said, which meant something like "There's a Snicket on this list! But I can't imagine that anyone related to Jacques Snicket would be a criminal."  
  
"Maybe he is innocent, Lemony Snicket. Like us. We're on the list, but we're not criminals. At least…I hope we're not," Violet ended in a whisper. Klaus noticed she suddenly seemed to be fighting back tears.  
  
"We're not criminals," he told her firmly. "Anyway, look at these other names. A lot of them seem to have the name 'Olaf' in them…"  
  
"Aliasum!" shrieked Sunny, and she meant something along the lines of "They are probably the phony names Count Olaf has been using in the past!"  
  
"You're probably right, Sunny. Now there's only one person on the list we haven't figured out who she possibly is. Who is Lauren Ursula Lichtenstien- Ullman?" asked Violet curiously.  
  
"I've never heard of her," Klaus said, and it was something he had rarely ever said before. "But now let's take this paper and look around at the other filing cabinets on the list." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the list of Related Files for the VFD file. "Next filing cabinet's called 'Fortune-Telling.'"  
  
Around a quarter-hour later, they had arrived in front of a filing cabinet marked with that title. They heaved it open to, surprisingly, find a lone piece of paper. This one, however, was not a list.  
  
Violet quickly picked it up and read it out loud:  
  
GYPSY LULAIA, THE ALL-SEEING  
  
Gypsy Lulaia, All-Seeing was an intelligent but disturbed woman. She lived in the outskirts of the Kingdom of Snicket in the Gypsy-populated section. Little is known about her past, for she was very secretive. However, she is well-known among the remaining Snickets, for her supposed cursing of the people of Snicket at the time before its conquer by Olafia.  
  
They claim that, late the night before the Battle that brought Snicket's downfall, Lulaia ran down Main Street screaming about a man from the future who came to her in a dream. He said that terrible things were coming for the Snickets and that they should flee from Queen Jequesla and King Cymon's realm before it was too late. The Snickets refused, for they thought Cymon and Jequesla could protect them from anything. Lulaia, overcome with rage, put a spell on all that were ruled by Cymon and Jequesla, dooming their descendants for all eternity. She then hurled herself off a bridge into the dark waters of the Snicket River.  
  
"We should probably take this with us, too. When we find all these related files, we can put the clues together. I know that this Lulaia person has GOT to be related to what we're looking for. I mean, this article mentions a whole KINGDOM of Snicket!" Klaus said. He was so excited, his hands were shaking. They were so close! And if I had been talking to the Baudelaires at this point in time, I'd have congratulated them on just how close they'd gotten…but, unfortunately, I was being chased by a mongoose and her pet polar bear on the other side of the country at the moment, so I had no chance to commend them for their efforts.  
  
The Baudelaires were now just grinning at each other, Violet still holding the paper about Lulaia the All-Seeing. Their hearts were pounding so hard it hurt, but nothing could spoil their feelings of excitement…nothing except…oh, I mustn't tell you now. You will know sooner or later, though, I am very sorry to tell you. Ah, where was I?  
  
Yes, now, the Baudelaires. They slowly rose up to look for the "Tattoo" filing cabinet. They expected this one to be filled to the brim again, for "Tattoo" is a very broad topic. This time, though, they had an idea of what they were looking for: something about eye tattoos, like the kind Count Olaf and Jacques had on their ankles.  
  
Sure enough, after only a few minutes of searching through the stuffed cabinet, Sunny picked up a probable-looking piece of paper (with her teeth, of course). It read:  
  
THE STORY BEHIND THE EYE TATTOO  
  
In early times, citizens of the Kingdom of Snicket used pictures to represent words in the language they spoke. One picture that was used often among the Snickets was the image of an eye. This eye symbolized kindness and generosity, qualities Snickets prized above all others. It was sometimes pictured on the doors of families who could spare a room or meal.  
  
If a Snicket worked for and organization that involved giving to needy people, or another worthy cause, he or she would have the Eye painted on their ankle. Those who bore this eye would be treated with great respect, because they were of the best trade in the land: the trade of love for fellow Snickets.  
  
Today, some causes with Snicketian origin require their employees to have the image of an eye on their ankle. Most employees, so that they would not have to continually repaint the eye, simply get it tattooed.  
  
The orphans looked at each other, bewildered.  
  
"Count Olaf working for a worthy cause?" Violet said skeptically. "I just can't see that."  
  
"Sirapoo," said Sunny grimly, which here means "Well, he probably found a way to get employed at that organization and then stole all their money!"  
  
"This means that Olaf and Jacques didn't necessarily work at the same place, though," Klaus said, thinking. "They could have coincidentally worked for organizations that were both of Snicketian origin!"  
  
"Mowlufia!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "We'll never know until we look at the next filing cabinet! And, we still probably won't know then, either, but it's worth a try!"  
  
So, determined, they walked off to the S section to look for the cabinet entitled "Snicket Family, the History of." This cabinet, though easy to find, was difficult to open. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, and a spider had even built its web on it. Klaus opened it very carefully, so as not to break the cobweb. It let out a long, low groan as it opened. He read from a single, yellowing piece of paper:  
  
HISTORY OF THE SNICKET FAMILY  
  
It will be hundreds of thousands of years before anyone forgets Jequesla (637-598 BC) and Cymon (639-598 BC) of Snicket. Queen and King of Snicketia, or Snicket, which has since become the United States of VFD, including a village with the same name, they were peaceful rulers. They treated all their citizens fairly. Over time, they became extremely wealthy. Consequently, Olafus the Evil, of the neighboring Kingdom of Olafia, and his army planned an attack on the Kingdom of Snicket for its fortune. The bloody battle lasted thirteen days. In the end, the Olafians were victorious, and they drove the remaining Snickets out of their once- thriving Kingdom. Most of the Snickets died in the attack, but those who survived (they were called the "deSnickets" at the time) claimed that the night before the battle, a mysterious gypsy had put a curse on the people of Jequesla and Cymon, who were killed the next day. Their two sons, however, were among the escapees. Their names were Jacques and Lemony, and they grew up to become to new leaders of the Snickets. It has been a Snicket family tradition ever since to name one's first two sons by these names, Jacques for the elder and Lemony for the younger.  
  
"Look! This article even mentions Jacques's name! I guess there's a very small family of Snickets, then, if they can all name their children the same two names and not have problems," Klaus finished, his hands shaking again. He just knew that these three articles, along with the list of criminals, would be able to answer some of the strange questions about their past.  
  
"We should still check the B section for a Baudelaire file. After all, 'Baudelaire' was written on the bottom of that first VFD paper!" Violet said. "Even if we can feel this mystery coming together, we still have to keep looking."  
  
"Gupa!" Sunny agreed, and so they set off, yet again, to find another filing cabinet. They had to walk all the way to the other side of the library, which took five whole minutes. They arrived at the B section, and had an even harder time finding the Baudelaire cabinet. It took them a half hour to notice a rather small cabinet in a corner on the bottom row. It was different from the other cabinets in many ways. It did not have a label, but the name "Baudelaire" was engraved into it in elegant script. It looked very old; an antique. It was made of gorgeous mahogany wood, and it had a pure gold handle.  
  
The Baudelaires stared at it in amazement. This cabinet belonged in a museum, not a library! After a few more minutes of looking at the cabinet in bewilderment, Klaus stepped forward hesitantly. He briefly ran his fingers over his last name engraved in the polished wood. Then he pulled gently on the golden handle. The cabinet smoothly rolled open as if it were as light as a feather. The orphans gasped as they saw what was inside. Instead of file folders and stacks of typed paper, there was an enormous, single book. It had a leather cover and its title, printed in gold letters, read The Baudelaires.  
  
"A book about…us?" Violet asked. She reached for it. It opened with a thud and her question was answered. It was not a book about them. It was not even a book at all, as a matter of fact. It was a secret compartment. The pages had been hollowed out in the center to reveal a note. Violet gasped when she read who the note was for.  
  
Dear Violet, Klaus, and sweet little Sunny,  
  
If you are reading this, we are dead. For how long, I don't know. However, there is something we must tell you that we just couldn't say before. Look on the list of criminals you are holding. You see the name Lemony Snicket, no doubt? He is innocent, as innocent as they come. He was a friend of ours. But watch out for Lauren U. Lichtenstein-Ullman. I imagine she is number two?  
  
Must stop. Love you three more than anything.  
  
Kisses,  
  
Mother and Father  
  
P.S. don't trust L  
  
A tear slid down her cheek. Her parents had written to them, knowing they were about to die? All this was too strange to think about. She reached for Klaus and Sunny and embraced them, not caring that the people in the library were looking at them oddly, or that the other papers Klaus had been holding had fallen to the floor, forgotten. They were all wishing the same wish, wishing it so hard it hurt: they were wishing that their parents had never died.  
  
Madame Lulu had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. Where were Isadora, Duncan, and Quiglina? They were taking an awfully long time in that Library of Records. They needed to get ready to perform! She decided she would just check on them…just to be sure they were okay.  
  
She opened the battered library door. It creaked slowly and loudly, so that everyone looked up and glared at her as she passed, disturbing their quiet with the jingling of her many bracelets.  
  
Lulu finally found them in the B section, sitting close together with dazed looks on their faces. Isadora was clutching a small piece of paper.  
  
"Are y'all all right?" she asked the Baudelaires concernedly, startling them so much that Sunny gave a small yelp.  
  
"Y-yes," Klaus murmured. Violet and Sunny noticed he sounded as he had when they had been working at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and he had been hypnotized by the evil Dr. Orwell.  
  
"Well, us four've gotta perform soon; we better leave. Y'got what ya needed?" They nodded, and slowly got up. They were still feeling as though they had just been run over by a rampaging rhinoceros, just like what happened to me when I was on an African safari a couple years ago.  
  
Violet handed the note from Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire to Klaus because she had no pockets. Even though they had just heard from their beloved parents when they thought they never would again, they were in such gloomy moods that they felt certain they would never smile again. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
Back in the big tent, Mr. Gnawschtein He, as I'm sure you have forgotten, was their "coach" who taught them how to be acrobats. was lecturing the acrobats about their performance, which would take place in a half hour, in his whiny, nasal voice. The orphans' nerves were mounting as they heard the sounds of the audience filling in the seats in the cramped stadium.  
  
"You better not mess up," he squeaked. "or else." He frowned menacingly at the seven of them, and then turned and yelled to some other people backstage: "These acrobats need their makeup! What do you think you're doing, dilly-dallying instead of GIVING it to them?!" and he stormed off, his fat face jiggling and faintly purple.  
  
Sunny looked nervously up at Violet, who knew exactly was she was thinking. She was thinking, "Ynosi!" which meant, "I REALLY don't want to have to be thrown around from acrobat to acrobat for another hour," and Violet couldn't blame her. Sunny's unfortunate job was to be the acrobat that jumped from trapezes and was caught on other acrobats' feet, then flung upward again, as all the others switched positions on their trapezes. Then they all came down and did a routine with trampolines and gymnastics.  
  
Violet patted Sunny's shoulder comfortingly, but her mind was not on the show she was about to perform. It was on the letter from her parents, the one that was in Klaus's jacket pocket back at Madame Lulu's tent. Madame had wished them good luck, kissed them all on the cheek, and got ready to see the futures of the fair goers who were not interested in the Second- Greatest Show on Earth's performance. She didn't seem to notice how distressed her beloved orphans were after coming back from the Library of Records in downtown Librariton. Lulu was blissfully unaware of the terrible thing that would happen to her by the end of this chapter.  
  
***  
  
The lights dimmed, and a sudden hush came over the audience. An echoing voice that was very hoarse and strangely familiar to Klaus announced:  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen and children of ALL ages!" Noisy applause filled the tent. Klaus shivered. Was that the voice he thought he had heard? He glanced at Violet, but she just smiled weakly at him and whispered, "Good luck!" He shook his head vigorously...it must have been his imagination. He HAD become a bit paranoid; Count Olaf was following them wherever they went, so he had the right to be hearing his voice inside his head. Didn't he?  
  
Sunny grinned, revealing her overlarge teeth to another acrobat in an orange leotard, who backed away from her nervously. She giggled. Hopefully this would be over soon. She didn't like being thrown around, and besides, she had more important things on her mind: finding a new material to bite back at Madame Lulu's tent, for instance.  
  
***  
  
The Baudelaires only had a couple minutes left. All three had nailed their stunts so far, and were actually starting to enjoy themselves as the audience whistled and applauded, even Sunny.  
  
Finally, when the seven acrobats were through and were taking their bows and having roses thrown at their feet, Klaus spotted someone lurking behind the last row of seats. It was, as you have probably guessed, Count Olaf. He stared at Klaus, grinned mischievously, and held up his rusty knife, which resembled a sword it was so long. Klaus's heart dropped to his feet, and he let out a small yell. That caught Violet's attention, and he pointed to where Olaf had been. Violet looked at him strangely. He realized that Count Olaf was not there at all...had his mind been tricking him again? Must have been. "It's all in your head, Klaus," he said to himself. "You're just seeing things. Count Olaf has NOT followed you to Librariton."  
  
But, unfortunately, Klaus was wrong about that. He was very, very wrong in saying that Count Olaf was not present at this foul fair. Little did he know that Olaf and his cruel companions had been watching his and his sisters' every move, hatching plans and scheming. Little did they all know that he would soon gain one more spy...in a place that they would least expect it.  
  
***  
  
Why, Duncan, dearie, you're walkin' the wrong way. My tent is thataway, 'member?" Madame Lulu asked Klaus. "You know, I'm beginnin' to worry about y'all. You ain't been yourselves today. Anythin' you'd wanna talk to me about?"  
  
"N-no," Klaus stammered. "We're okay–," But at that moment, Sunny cried out,  
  
"Look!" She pointed at the sky, but no one looked at the sky. They looked at her, because she had actually uttered a word that people other than Violet and Klaus could understand. "Look!" she shrieked again. The orphans and Lulu looked this time, and they could see a colorful shape growing larger and larger as it neared the ground. It grew closer, and as it did, they could hear two voices, both yelling at the top of their lungs: fairly high-pitched ones. Finally the thing hit the ground and out burst many things–potatoes, bits of yarn–but mostly ketchup, for some reason. The three Baudelaire orphans and Madame Lulu were all drenched from head to toe in ketchup, but that was not what made Lulu scream, however.  
  
"Golly gee gosh! My tent, my tent! It's crashed into my gorgeous tent! Oh golly gee whiz, how'll I ever fix it? Oh golly..."  
  
Sunny paid no attention to this outburst. She tottered forward to the tent, turned around and looked at her siblings with the widest grin they had ever seen, and beckoned them forward.  
  
Violet looked at Klaus, and then at Sunny and the tent and then back at Klaus and then to Madame Lulu, and then back to Sunny. She smiled, because now she understood what was going on.  
  
She grabbed Klaus by the arm and pulled him toward the tent and the colorful thing that had crashed into it. He looked bewildered, and obviously hadn't the faintest idea of what Violet was thinking.  
  
But then his heart leapt out about four feet as two short figures emerged from the wreckage. They tried in vain to shake some of the ketchup from their clothes, but they were so covered in it that the Baudelaires could not see their faces. But they knew who it was. The people who had, by chance, crashed a Self-Sustaining Hot-Air Mobile Home into Madame Lulu's tent were their best friends, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. And when the Quagmire Triplets wiped their faces and, in turn, recognized the Baudelaires, it was the strangest (and longest) reunion they had had yet.  
  
At first they just stood numb with shock, unable to believe their good luck, which all five had been deprived of in their lives so far. It was Isadora who broke the silence.  
  
"Violet?!"  
  
"Klaus?!" Duncan followed.  
  
"Sunny?!" they said at the same time.  
  
There was a pause, in which they stared at each other with their mouths hanging open.  
  
"Where's Hector?" Klaus said faintly. The Quagmires exchanged dark looks and said nothing.  
  
"Ranchero?" Sunny asked. In this case, she meant something along the lines of, "Please don't tell me he took the only parachute and left you all alone in the air to pursue his life's dream of becoming a bungee jumper." and Violet translated for the Quagmires.  
  
"Actually, yes, that was what happened," Duncan said gloomily.  
  
On and on they talked. The Baudelaires explained about their brief stay at Heimlich Hospital, and how they met Madame Lulu and became acrobats. But they had completely forgotten that she had been listening and watching the whole time. She backed away from the scene slowly with a look of mixed horror and disbelief on her face. She had heard them being called the names of the Baudelaire murderers, and they had acted completely natural. Their secret was out.  
  
Lulu screamed shrilly and sprinted away as fast as she could.  
  
"Oh no," Violet said, raising a hand to her mouth.  
  
"She's gone to call the police! We have to hide!" Klaus said frantically.  
  
"Nolava?" said Sunny, which meant, "But where?"  
  
"I don't know, but we have to get there fast," said Isadora. She scanned the now-deserted carnival. Most of the fair goers had either been scared away by the UFO-like thing that had fallen from the sky or they had gone to try and get the ketchup off their clothes. Remembering this, Klaus voiced something his sisters had wanted to ask, but didn't think the time was right.  
  
"Um...why did Hector's mobile home explode in ketchup?"  
  
"We'll explain once we've hidden," Duncan said. "How about over there, in the balloon stall?" Which was a perfect idea, because it was a place isolated enough that they could talk in peace.  
  
"The reason the mobile home exploded in ketchup was because that was the fuel we used," said Duncan. Seeing the blank looks on the Baudelaire faces, he said, "Explain, Isadora."  
  
"A few days after we flew away from VFD with Hector, the mobile home started to slow down and act as if it were about to fall. We checked the fuel tanks, and they were full, so we figured that the fuel simply didn't work."  
  
"After all the work I did on it? I can't believe I missed that!" Violet exclaimed. She was somewhat hurt that the Self-Sustaining Hot-Air Mobile Home that she had slaved away at, in hopes that she and her siblings could escape from VFD on it, did not work perfectly.  
  
"I'm sorry, Violet, but it's the truth. Anyway, we tried everything. It seemed like all hope was lost until Hector remembered the massive amount of ketchup he had brought along, just in case," Isadora continued.  
  
"In case of what?" asked Klaus.  
  
"In case we ran out of salsa for all the Mexican food he makes!" said Duncan, as if this were completely obvious. He waved a hand impatiently. "I'll finish. So, we tried putting ketchup in the fuel tank, and it–,"  
  
"Shh!" Sunny interrupted, which meant, "Be quiet! I hear someone coming; probably to look for us!"  
  
Sure enough, the Baudelaires and the Triplets could hear voices getting louder as they approached the balloon stall in which they hid. Klaus's heart skipped a beat. Was he hearing things again? No, this time his sisters' and friends' eyes widened with fear also.  
  
"So, ma'am, you say the murderers were right over there, by your tent–er, should I say, what USED to be your tent?" said the scratchy voice all five orphans knew too well.  
  
"Yes, siree. And I still can't believe it. They were my darlin' Quagmires; I trusted them. But I guess I shouldn't've..." said Madame Lulu's wavering, accented voice. The real Quagmires knew right away that the Baudelaires had used their names, and didn't mind.  
  
"Not to worry, ma'am. My associates and I will have it all fixed. We'll find them soon enough, I assure you."  
  
"Why, thank you, officer," They could hear a bit of a giggle in Lulu's voice now. "It's awfully BRAVE of you to try an' capture dangerous murderers and protectin' lil' ole me! I thought nothin' would dare threaten me, 'cause, well, you've got yourself a 100% psychic right here, you mark my words...officer? Of-officer? What are you d–," but her cry was stifled suddenly as Count Olaf snatched her away.  
  
Violet clapped a hand to her mouth again.  
  
"Lulu! He's kidnapped Lulu!" she whispered through her fingers. The five orphans hurried outside. The whole carnival was now completely empty, because of the sighting of the "murderers."  
  
"Ypostu!" Sunny said. She pointed at a folded piece of paper that had been dropped at the foot of the stand.  
  
"Yeah. There's a note here. Wonder who it's for..." said Violet curiously as she picked it up and opened it. It was written in letters that had been cut out of many different places in a magazine, therefore resembling a ransom note, which is what it happened to be. The ransom, however, forced them to give up something uncommon. It read as follows:  
  
Dear Brats (all five),  
  
Want Lulu to stay alive? Be at Ferris Wheel in 3 hours. Be prepared to part with the middle Baudelaire Brat and the girl twin. We have already explained why. The gypsy-idiot's life is in your hands 


	7. Chapter 7

1 Chapter Seven  
  
Violet gazed at the note in utter disbelief. Her friends and siblings were looking at her with troubled, pleading faces: faces that expected her to know what to do, and how to do it. It was all her fault, she just felt it. Once again she remembered the promise she made to her parents that she would always protect Klaus and Sunny, but look where she'd led them!  
  
"If someone had told me, that day at the beach," she began in a small voice, "that someday we would perform as acrobats in a traveling carnival and find ourselves in a dreadful situation involving the kidnapping of a 15% (who claims to be 100%) psychic gypsy by a horrible ugly Count who has troubled us in eight other homes—if one can call some of them 'homes'—and now plans to steal our fortunes, and kill us too, I would have said they'd had too much cotton candy! But he CAN, and he WILL!" She threw the note to the ground and stomped on it, ripping it up as Chabo would have done with his mighty jaws.  
  
"And who will take care of Chabo?" she asked, for the thought of that Very Freakish Dog just popped into her mind, too. Violet sat down and put her head in her hands, because all her hope was lost.  
  
Isadora timidly reached down and picked up Olaf's ransom note. She read it in a quavering voice that got squeakier and squeakier as she progressed.  
  
"…the gypsy-idiot's life is in your hands," she finished, and followed in Violet's footsteps by throwing it to the ground and stamping on it as hard as she could.  
  
"What should we do?" Duncan asked dully. He was tugging on his hair as if he wished for it all to just get off his head.  
  
"Heece," said Sunny, which, if you recall from book the fourth, means, "Beats me. I'm only a baby."  
  
"Well, we HAVE to at least try to find Lulu," Klaus said. "This isn't fair. If we can't find her, then we'll just have to do what the letter says. Give up the fortunes." He did not need to voice the fact that he would also be killed, for however hard it is to even imagine a thing like that happening to someone close to you, it was what was on all five orphans' minds. Isadora swallowed hard.  
  
"You-you're right. We can't let Olaf murder Lulu just because she was unfortunate enough to…this may sound mean, but…because she was unfortunate enough to befriend you. I mean, look what happened to Duncan and me!"  
  
"What is that supposed to mean? This isn't our fault!" Violet said angrily.  
  
"He follows you wherever you go, and he affects the people you meet. You told me he also killed your Uncle Monty, and your Aunt Josephine!" Duncan pointed out.  
  
"And I can't help but be a tiny bit disappointed that this is how my life is going to end! I haven't even published one poem yet!" Isadora started to cry, and Duncan patted her shoulder.  
  
"So now you're against us?" Klaus asked incredulously. "Our very best friends, against us?"  
  
"Mahitif!" Sunny shrieked.  
  
"Of course not. We're still going to look for Madame Lola, or whatever her name was," said Duncan, but he did not sound like he was actually going to try hard.  
  
"It's Lulu," Violet corrected him automatically.  
  
"You know what I mean!" he snapped, and turned to Isadora. "Why don't we go this way, and they can go that way—,"  
  
"No. We're all going to stick together," said Violet, and she half- smiled at Klaus, remembering the last time one of the Baudelaires had made a decision to stay together instead of splitting up. It had been the time when all three were about to jump out the window of Heimlich Hospital, and Violet wanted to jump one at a time to make sure the cord they had made would hold up. But Klaus convinced her that leaving no one behind was how they were really different from Count Olaf.  
  
"Fine," the Quagmire Triplets said in unison. There was a very long pause.  
  
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Isadora said. "This is so stupid. We need each other, and I was making it sound like we were better off without having ever met one another!"  
  
"I'm sorry too," said Duncan. "I hope you'll forgive us!"  
  
"Etuock!" said Sunny, which meant something along the lines of, "Yes, we forgive you! Now let's go find Lulu!" And that is what the five orphans set out to do.  
  
***  
  
Madame Lulu woke up, groggy and dazed, at the top of a very tall place. She had no idea where she was or what had just happened…She remembered her "darlin' Quagmires" turning out to be the infamous Baudelaire murderers, and then the police officer kidnapping her, but after that her memory was blank. She sat up and looked around the room she found herself in. It resembled an attic of sorts; very untidy with cobwebs in the corners. There was an old oak table with stacks of dusty papers on top. Every wall was covered in shelves and shelves of books.  
  
Lulu got to her feet to examine the papers. When she looked closer at the desk, she noticed that the image of an eye had been carved in roughly in odd places. Because this eye reminded her of a particularly painful happening in her past, one that makes me cry myself to sleep when I think of it before bedtime, and also because she was just curious, she picked up a stack of paper.  
  
Almost a whole inch of dust slid off the top paper, causing the gypsy to have a sneezing fit about fifteen minutes long (she was strongly allergic to dust). She held the first paper an arm's length away from her face as she read:  
  
6/13  
  
Baudelaires employed as acrobats. In care of Lauren U. Lichtenstein- Ullman. Need to wait…need to get something they really care for.  
  
6/14  
  
Found job as ring leader. Have to stay close to keep an eye on Baudelaires, make sure they don't escape.  
  
Lulu read on and on, learning about long, complicated plans to steal the Baudelaire murderers' money! But maybe they're not murderers, she suddenly thought. Look at yourself…your name is on just about every most- wanted criminal list and you don't even consider the idea that others may be innocent!  
  
"I'm a 100% psychic!" yelled the 15% psychic. "I will save those kids if it be the last thang I ever done!" So she sat down to prepare her 15% psychic brain to communicate with a certain Very Freakish Dog by the name of Chabo, who was at the moment searching for his master as hard as he could.  
  
***  
  
The orphans were tiptoeing along the sides of tents, trying to avoid the police but trying to find a gypsy, which was a very hard thing to do. This was a particularly difficult task to complete because the police had closed off the entire Librariton carnival area, making it impossible for the five children to leave. They had decided, consequently, to search the carnival area first, for there was a possibility that Madame Lulu was being hidden on the grounds, though they highly doubted it.  
  
Suddenly they saw a flashlight in the distance, bobbing closer and closer with each step its holder took. Whoever it was was staggering most unusually, looking very tall and thin. This was because the person was indeed on stilts.  
  
"Quick, hide behind this flap!" said Violet, pointing to an opening in one of the tents they were currently walking next to. To their horror, two more stilted figures walked out the same way, almost bumping into them. Luckily—a word I do not often use when writing about the Baudelaires—they were able to scramble behind a nearby bush (A/N: which I placed there due to lack of better ideas…) before the second and third tall, thin figures could even notice them.  
  
"Ah! There you two are. Any luck so far?" asked a high, cold voice that belonged to none other than Esme Squalor.  
  
"Unfortunately, no," one of the others said in a moderately high voice.  
  
"But half the brats' time is already gone…They've only got an hour and a half left until either they give up their fortunes or that gypsy's toast!" the last one cackled.  
  
"Oh, you're right! It is already 10:30…" Esme replied. "Well, you keep searching and I'll check back with Olaf." She straightened an overly-poofy wig on her head, and at that moment the orphans all realized the same thing at the same time: Esme and the two others (undoubtedly the powder-faced women) were pretending to be—and doing an extremely poor job at being—clowns.  
  
I don't know about you, but I have very bad memories associated with clowns. For instance: I remember a time when I, Selia Jour, was stuck in an elevator with a clown. This elevator happened to be falling down an elevator shaft of a sixty-six story apartment building, because a particularly snobby woman had just decided that elevators were "out" and ordered that the cords holding the elevator up be cut. While the elevator was dropping down to what would surely be my death, the only thing there was to look at was the clown, who was seemingly just as petrified as I was. So, you can imagine how I associate clowns with great heights, and have been terrified of both ever since.  
  
This was not the case for the Baudelaires and Quagmires, however, so they were not afraid of the clown portion of this disguise. They were afraid of the people wearing the clown disguises, and I'm sure you understand why.  
  
What the people in the clown costumes had said had been even more disturbing that the fact that they were even present, and made all five stomachs lurch unpleasantly. Their time was half-up, and they were no nearer to finding Lulu than going home and living with their parents again. 


End file.
